


Irresponsible Xmas/Hanukkah Gift(s)

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Category: Glee
Genre: Alive Finn Hudson, Cats, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Presents, Do Not Give Pets As Holiday Presents, Hanukkah, M/M, Tumblr: fuckurtadvent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 12:19:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8713684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: “Domestic” sounds better than “irresponsible”.Fuckurt Advent: Day 1





	

They’ve been in the new apartment for about three weeks when the topic of pet ownership first comes up. The conversation actually starts off as a ‘do you want kids’ discussion, but when things get a little touchy—Finn, who hasn’t had a kid, might want one some day; Puck, who _has_ had a kid, doesn’t want to commit to having another one—they veer into the safer realm of potential future mutual pet ownership. By the time they’re done talking, the consensus seems to be: 1) yes on a pet, 2) yes on cats, no on dogs, and 2) acquisition at some unspecified future date. 

Finn knows that “some unspecified future date” probably doesn’t mean about a month later when, on his way out of Walmart with a couple of bags of Christmas Eve and first-night-of-Hanukkah food for the following evening, he notices the stacks of cages set up just outside the sliding doors. The exterior cages have blankets draped over their outer-facing sides, creating a windblock and probably providing some small amount of warmth. Still, the sad-looking animals in the cages look much colder than the stony-faced man and slightly-less-frowny woman seated at a small folding table. The woman has on a bright blue parka. When Finn accidentally makes eye contact with her, she gestures aggressively at the banner taped to the front of the table. 

The banner announces **Paws Over Ohio Pet Rescue** in big black letters across the top, and _Adopt Today!_ in smaller red letters directly beneath. Finn assumes the cartoon animals on the banner are supposed to be a cat and a dog, though they look more like a skinny guinea pig and a mop with a face, respectively. Finn knows he should keep walking, head to his truck and try to beat Puck home, but instead he takes a step towards the table.

“How much is the adoption fee?” comes out of Finn’s mouth before he consciously realizes he’s asking it. The parka woman’s face brightens as she elbows the man next to her.

“Sixty for cats, a hundred for dogs,” the parka woman says. “They’ve got all their shots, plus all of them are fixed except for the puppies and kittens.”

“No dogs,” Finn says, because he and Puck had both agreed very firmly on that point.

“Sixty for cats,” the parka woman repeats.

“I’m just looking today,” Finn says. The woman waves him into the cage-and-blanket enclosure. The entire back wall is made from stacked cages containing two to five cats a piece, except for one cage at the very bottom, tucked into a shadowy spot. That cage appears empty at first, then Finn notices a lone yellow eye glowing in the darkness. As he start to crouch and look in the cage, a horrible yowling noise comes out of it, and he quickly stands up again, taking a half-step backwards. 

“That’s Sunshine,” the parka woman says.

“Uh huh,” Finn says, eyeing the cage warily as he moves towards a different stack of cages. A small grey and white cat in the top cage in that row rubs against the door, purring loudly. Finn sticks his finger into the cage. The small cat obligingly rubs against it and purrs louder. 

“Her name’s Dixie Cup,” the parka woman says.

“Dixie Cup?” Finn asks. “What kind of a name is Dixie Cup?”

“Well, she came to us with the name Eleanor, but people seemed to think that meant she was old, so we started calling her Dixie Cup,” the parka woman explains, if that can really be called explaining.

“Is she old?” Finn asks.

“She’s only three,” the parka woman says.

“Hi, Eleanor,” Finn says to the cat, who continues to purr and rub against the cage and Finn’s finger. “I don’t think I’ll call you Dixie Cup. I like you, though.”

“You know,” the stony-faced man says, speaking for the first time, “she’s been with us a while, so we could probably drop that adoption fee down to fifty.”

“I really wasn’t planning on getting a cat today,” Finn says apologetically, withdrawing his finger from the cage. Dixie Cup née Eleanor mews at him in distress. 

“He meant forty,” the parka woman says. 

“I’d have to get a bunch of cat stuff,” Finn says. “I don’t have any. Plus, I’ve got stuff I need to take home.” He holds up his bags and shakes them a little to indicate the importance of actually getting them home.

“We can hold her for you, if you want,” the stony-faced man says.

“All you have to do is pay the adoption fee and sign a form,” the parka woman says, nodding her head reassuringly. “You can come back and get her any time before seven.”

“I don’t know,” Finn says, looking back at the little cat. She mews at him.

“We’ll throw in a coupon for a free round of booster shots,” the parka woman says.

Finn sighs. “Okay. I’ll be back before seven. I just have to figure out what to do with her.”

The stony-faced man smiles, the kind of smile that looks painful, and slides a clipboard across the table. “Fill out this form. You can make the check out to Paws Over Ohio Pet Rescue.”

 

Puck keeps telling himself that he’s going to stop relying on oven-baked pizza for one of his three nights to cook each week, but that doesn’t mean he’s not pulling into the Walmart parking lot after work on December 23, looking to get a couple of Freschettas to throw in the oven as soon as he gets home. As he walks up the entrance, though, he notices a pet adoption banner and decides to detour. He’s pretty sure that people aren’t supposed to give pets as gifts or whatever, but he and Finn had said they both wanted a cat, and here are what looks like several cats. 

“Hey,” Puck says to the man and the woman sitting behind a table. “Do you have any, you know, less… adoptable cats? Like a three-legged one or something?” Puck’d thought about it a little after he and Finn discussed pets, and he was pretty sure that they could handle a cat with a few quirks or issues. 

“We do,” the man says, which immediately causes the woman to elbow him. “Sunshine _is_ less adoptable.” 

“Sunshine?” Puck asks. “That doesn’t sound like a hard to adopt cat.” 

“Sunshine is missing an eye,” the woman says, “as well as part of an ear on the same side. And Sunshine does love to lie in the sun, but he’s rather temperamental right now.” 

“He hates the cold,” the man says bluntly. “It makes him yowl.” 

“We could keep him inside,” Puck says. “Let me see him.” 

Seeing Sunshine turns out to be misnomer, since Sunshine is huddled in the back of his cage, his one eye staring out of the dark corner. Puck can see a few flashes of white, and then Sunshine lets out a pitiful yowl. 

“He’s black and white?” Puck asks as he stands back up. 

“Like a tuxedo,” the woman confirms.

Puck looks at his phone, making sure Finn’s not wondering where he is, and then looks over at the entrance to Walmart. “I have to go in and get dinner and some food for him and all of that,” Puck says. “What’s the adoption fee? I’ll go ahead and pay it so no one else claims him.” 

“I don’t—” the man starts to say, and the woman elbows him again. 

“It’s sixty,” she says. “That’s a wonderful idea.” 

 

In the carrier next to Finn, in the truck currently parked in Carole and Burt’s driveway, Eleanor-formerly-Dixie-Cup-formerly-Eleanor mews in the saddest possible voice. Finn calls the house number for the third time. For the third time, the call goes to voicemail after five rings. He calls Carole’s cell, but it goes to voicemail as well. He calls Burt’s cell; it also goes to voicemail. 

“Hey, Burt,” Finn says. “Just trying to get Mom on the phone. Have her call me back when you get this.” He ends the call, sighing loudly.

“Mew?” Eleanor asks.

“I don’t know. I guess they aren’t back from D.C. yet,” Finn says. He turns off the engine, grabbing the handle of Eleanor’s carrier as he steps out of the truck. If Carole isn’t there, she can’t protest Finn’s leaving Eleanor shut in the downstairs bathroom until the following night, so he brings in the cat and her belongings. He sets up the small litter box next to the toilet, pours Eleanor bowls of food and water, and then sits on top of the closed toilet lid. Eleanor winds her way around Finn’s ankles, purring.

“Hi, Eleanor. I’m calling you Eleanor Catby. I wish I could take you home tonight, but it’s not Christmas Eve or Hanukkah yet,” Finn explains to Eleanor, who purrs louder every time he speaks to her directly. 

Between the point in time of forking over a check for forty dollars and the point in time of parking in Carole and Burt’s driveway, Finn passed through a few cat-related emotions. He experienced self-doubt on his drive back to the apartment, regret as he put away the various holiday foods and supplies, and several bouts of anxiety as he shopped for food, a litter box, and other cat necessities at the Petco before returning to the Walmart to get the cat. Now that he’s here with said cat, who is happily purring and leaving white and grey hairs all over Finn’s jeans, he mostly feels content and the tiniest bit nervous. They _had_ both agreed on getting a cat at some point. So Finn moved the time table up a little. That’s not a problem. It’s a dual holiday miracle!

“Right?” Finn asks Eleanor.

“Mew,” says Eleanor. 

 

While Puck is hurrying through Walmart, he also texts Jake. He doesn’t tell him what the Hanukkah help he needs is, just that he needs it, and can Puck meet him at Jake’s mom’s place in another half an hour or so? Jake says yes, which means Puck probably needs to give Jake a lecture at some point _after_ Hanukkah about not saying yes to things before he gets the full details of them. 

Puck throws a heating pad in with the cat stuff and the pizza, picks up Sunshine, and then heads to meet Jake. Puck turns the heat way up as he drives, and by the time Puck pulls in beside Jake’s car, Sunshine is at the front of the carrier looking calmly at Puck. 

“You just needed to get warm, big guy?” Puck asks. “We can’t call you Sunshine, though. You look like a spy.” He stops, examines Sunshine more, and then shakes his head. “No, a butler. I’ll come up with a butler name for you.” 

Jake’s jaw drops when he realizes Puck’s brought a big one-eyed cat for spur of the moment cat-sitting, but Puck does some fast talking. It’s only for one night, and it’s for Hanukkah-slash-Christmas gifting. By the time ten minutes have passed, Puck’s helped Jake get a place for the cat set up inside, complete with heating pad. The cat promptly lies down on it and then slowly starts to purr. 

“So what’s his name?” Jake asks, and Puck chews on his lip, trying to think of famous butlers. 

“Alfred’s too obvious,” Puck says slowly. “Maybe… maybe Edgar. Yeah. Hey, Edgar!” Edgar doesn’t purr louder or anything like that, but he does flick his one ear toward Puck. “Yeah, Edgar’s a good name. I’ll come get you tomorrow so you can go home, Edgar. Just stay on the heating pad for now.” 

“I’ll keep him fed and warmed,” Jake says. “Go home and bake your frozen pizza.” 

 

After the early morning voicemail from Carole asking what on earth a cat is doing in her downstairs bathroom, Finn figures he had better plan to spend at least a half hour with her and Burt when he goes to pick up Eleanor. Luckily, Puck also makes plans to swing by his mom’s place to see her and his sister, probably detouring by Jake’s before coming home. Finn arrives at Burt and Carole’s at five, eats a slice of Carole’s Christmas cake, and endures a forty-five minute lecture on the irresponsibility of buying someone a live animal for Christmas.

“Technically, it’s for Hanukkah,” Finn says, even though _technically_ -technically, it’s for Christmas Eve/Hanukkah combo. 

“Oh _you_ ,” Carole says, swatting Finn with a small, red kitchen towel with a gingerbread man embroidered on it. 

After promising that he and Puck will come over at exactly noon on Christmas Day, Finn gathers up Eleanor’s things, puts Eleanor in the carrier, and drives back to the apartment. He gets home just in time to stuff Eleanor’s carrier into the bedroom closet, closing the closet door right as Puck comes in the front door. 

“Don’t look in the bedroom closet!” Finn calls out to Puck. “Your present’s in there!”

“Is it too big to wrap?” Puck calls back. 

Finn pictures tiny Eleanor curled up into an even tinier ball inside her carrier. “Uh. Yes?”

 

Puck goes over to his mom’s to get the box with the menorah and the dreidels down from the attic, like he promised, and then he promises he and Finn’ll come over for the third night of Hanukkah. Somehow that turns into Puck agreeing to make the latkes even though he technically is a guest, but his sister’s not wrong: his latkes are better than their mom’s. 

Box-gathering accomplished, Puck drives over to meet up with Jake, who looks less annoyed and far more amused than he did the night before. “I decided this is great,” Jake says. 

“Edgar?” Puck says, a little doubtfully, since Jake said he barely spent any time in the bathroom with Edgar. 

“Nah, well, sort of. You, with a shared apartment and a cat. It’s so domestic.” 

“Huh? It’s not like it’s HGTV or Martha Stewart or anything,” Puck says as he gathers up Edgar’s stuff. 

“It’s not too late for me to get you a subscription to one of those,” Jake says. “You might want one, now that you’re all settled down.” 

“Maybe you can’t come over for latkes on Tuesday night after all.” Puck rolls his eyes. 

“Fine, fine, you’re not at all boring and domestic, or if you are, I won’t call it that,” Jake says, rolling his own eyes. 

“Just remember,” Puck says as he slides Edgar into the carrier with a warmed towel, “you’re the one that says we’re too much alike.” 

Puck decides on the drive home that since he has to throw a blanket over Edgar’s carrier anyway, he’ll sit the carrier, blanket and all, in the front closet, and convince Finn to exchange gifts before they do any cooking. 

Puck pushes the door open tentatively, prepared to tell Finn to hide his eyes or something, but Finn calls from the bedroom, and Puck quickly opens the closet as he responds, then lowers his voice. 

“Just wait right here, Edgar.” 

 

Finn carries both mugs of spiked hot chocolate—with extra mini-marshmallows, because what’s the point of being an adult if you can’t have as many mini-marshmallows as you want—in and sets them on the coffee table in front of their spots on the sofa. Their little three-foot tree from Walmart isn’t much to look at, but with only the kitchen light and one of the lamps on, the strings of multicolored lights on the tree and the two glowing candles on the menorah on top of the bookshelf make the apartment feel like they’ve made a real home together. 

“So,” Finn says, after taking a sip of his hot chocolate. “Do you want to open presents now?”

“Yeah, we should go ahead,” Puck says. “You want to go first?” 

“At the same time. I’ll throw a blanket or a towel over the one from me so it’ll be like opening it.”

“Oh, that’s what I did with yours,” Puck admits. 

“Cool,” Finn says. “I’ll go get yours, you can get mine, and we’ll open them at the same time.”

“Awesome,” Puck says, taking another drink of his hot chocolate before standing up. 

Finn goes into the bedroom and gets Eleanor’s carrier from the closet. She chirps a little mew at him and then promptly begins purring. 

“Shhh,” Finn whispers to her. “You’re gonna give it away.”

Eleanor continues purring, so Finn just drapes a blanket over the carrier and hopes that will muffle the sound for the next half-a-minute or so until Puck opens his gift. Unblankets his gift, Finn supposes, technically. 

He carries the blanket-covered carrier into the living room and sets it down in front of their tiny tree, sitting next to it. Puck is also setting down a large blanket-covered lump. 

“At the same time?” Puck asks. 

“Sure,” Finn says. “One, two…”

 

“Three,” Puck and Finn say at the same time, pulling off the blankets. Puck does a double-take, looking at the near-identical carriers in front of each of them, and then starts laughing. 

“Uh, Puck?” Finn says. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Not if you think it’s empty?” Puck offers. 

“No, I think it has a cat it in,” Finn says, looking down at the carrier directly in front of him.

“Then yes, it’s what you think it is,” Puck says, still laughing a little. 

“You got me a cat?”

“Uh-huh,” Puck says as he nods. 

“I also got you a cat, too, as well,” Finn says, peering down through the metal grating of the carrier’s door. “Wait. Is that…”

“What?” 

“Sunshine?”

“No, we don’t speak of that name,” Puck says. “He’s Edgar now. I asked them for the less adoptable cats. He’s just missing an eye and part of an ear and likes to be warm. Right, Edgar?” He opens the door to the carrier in front of him. “What about this one?” 

“Her name is Eleanor,” Finn says. “Eleanor Catby.”

“She’s tiny,” Puck says as Eleanor walks towards him. Her face is grey and white, and most of her body is grey, too, with white legs. “Catby?” 

Finn grins. “Yeah. _Eleanor Catby_ ,” he starts singing, to the tune of _Eleanor Rigby_ , “ _eats all the mice in the church where a wedding has been._ ”

“All the lonely kitties?” Puck guesses. 

“Well, they were calling her Dixie Cup, but they said her name used to be Eleanor, so…” Finn shrugs. “Eleanor Catby.” 

Finn undoes the latch on Edgar’s cage and swings the door open. Edgar starts to walk out, straight towards Finn, until he swings his head and looks at Eleanor. He jumps straight into the air and then takes off towards the sofa like a shot, disappearing under it. 

“Aww, poor Edgar,” Puck says. Eleanor doesn’t seem to even notice Edgar. She climbs into Puck’s lap and curls up, purring loudly. 

“Maybe he’ll warm up to her,” Finn says. He looks up at Puck and starts to laugh. 

“What?” Puck asks. 

“Mom gave me this long lecture on irresponsible Christmas gifts,” Finn says. 

“Technically they’re Hanukkah gifts, too?” 

“Maybe still a little bit irresponsible.”

“It’s not like we’re not going to feed them or something,” Puck says. “Jake just said it was super-domestic and wanted to get us a subscription to Martha Stewart’s magazine.” 

“I think I like ‘domestic’ way better than ‘irresponsible’,” Finn says.

“We’ll just wait a few days to tell your mom there’s two of them,” Puck says. “And I bet if you get the heating pad out, Edgar’ll come out.” 

Finn leans towards Puck, putting one hand on Eleanor to pet her as he gives Puck a kiss. “Happy Hanukkah, Puck.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Eleanor](http://i.imgur.com/a1xgThd.jpg) and [Edgar](http://i.imgur.com/tpsmdev.jpg).


End file.
